


ultraviolet

by AzuraDameron



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I wanted Alucard to comfort him so I made it happen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Nightmares, Paranoia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, brief reference to trephacard, listen Hector's been through some shit alright, some referenced canon divergence that may or may not be relevant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 06:05:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16804933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AzuraDameron/pseuds/AzuraDameron
Summary: Hector didn't know how long it'd been since he escaped Carmilla; Alucard didn't know when Trevor and Sypha were returning. Hector didn't know where the castle was or if he'd be welcomed back; Alucard wasn't expecting a visitor one maudlin night.Title is a placeholder until I think of a better one





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been hammering away at this thing for a solid month and I'm going crosseyed. I just wanted some Hector fluff but I'm just hardwired to write angst so I can better write the fluff. Thus, All Of The Shit That Happens in this. Also it is and isn't done? It's kinda done. Done enough for me to post it.

Hector flinched awake, instincts reacting before rationality did. He startled upright, displacing crackling leaves from where they just cushioned him. What awoke him? The forest appeared calm, but— no. Voices. There were voices.

Hector bolted to his feet, sleep forgotten. He chewed his cracked lip, considering the alcoves and too-big foxholes where his mock night horde rested. The ghouls could move during the day, but it was treacherous to do so— their black bodies made them moving scabs across the autumn-flushed landscape, particularly in midday. Hector was trying to skirt as many villages as he humanly could, barely staving off starvation and thirst, but this was not the first failure. His last encounter earned him a graze on his arm from an arrow— a wound probably infected by now, like every other open sore festering on his battered flesh. He was running from death at this point, a hound ever at his heels that would not bite, not until Hector stumbled and rewarded its steady patience.

The voices floated closer, puncturing Hector’s exhaustion-addled mind.

“…an’ I says to ‘im… I’ll fuck your wife anytime I want!”

“She really ‘is wife if she’s unsatisfied?”

Men. Crass men. The type of men that sounded drunk when they were stone-cold sober, that itched for fights and fucks and little else. The type of men that would hurt him. 

Hector scrambled over to one of the large but well-hidden foxholes— little more than a brown slit in the dead grass. He dove in, startling a yelp from the sleeping ghoul. He hastily hissed for it to shush as he tucked himself against it, feeling the dirt cake onto his rags, his sun burnt skin, his brittle-string hair. The chain of his goddamned collar dragged above ground. He yanked it down, wincing as it clattered against his shoulder. Tuned to its master’s emotions, the ghoul hugged Hector a little closer. Hector hunkered in and listened for the passing voices.

“…saw that Belmont pass through the other day.”

“You sure he didn’t just cop a shirt from the old estate?”

“Hah! He might’ve.”

“Heard a lonesome Speaker girl pulled apart a fight between old Lou and a crazy man. Heard the guy was the Belmont.”

“He was.”

Hector’s mind spun, reeling back to recall information from eons ago. Hadn’t Carmilla said a Belmont and a Speaker were with Alucard near Arges? Was that a different spy? Was Hector just making up information based on significant sounding names?

“—think they have something to do with Dracula’s castle appearin’?”

Hector started, earning a very quiet whine from the ghoul. Dracula’s castle was nearby? The men’s voices washed away as a sputtering spring of hope threatened to spill out of Hector. Carmilla said Dracula was dead. But did Hector believe her? There was no guarantee that Dracula would welcome Hector back after his betrayal. And if Alucard had slain him and taken the castle, Hector was under no illusions the son would not eliminate any and all vestiges of Dracula’s council. But Hector had flown from Carmilla in blind search of the castle he’d briefly called home. It was a fool’s search, he knew, but it was the only beacon that pulled him forward, forward, and away from _her_. Without it, he would’ve laid down and died.

But then, with such a pointless hope, why didn’t he? Why shouldn’t he now? He could rot in this hole this very moment, let his exhaustion and his thirst and his hunger and his aches take him. What was the point in going on?

Perhaps, to die in Dracula’s castle. Yes, that would be a fitting tomb, no matter who greeted him there, if anyone at all. There was a comfort in those dark halls welcoming him into the abyss of afterlife. 

Mind made up, Hector continued surveilling the men’s crude conversation until their voices faded. Satisfied, Hector waited until his heart settled, his breathing evened out, before he drifted back into uneasy sleep.

Traveling by night was not unusual to Hector. He’d long since adjusted to a lack of light. No, the reason anxiety roiled in his gut was his proximity to beaten paths. His night horde trailed behind him, deeper in the forest, out of sight; Hector himself had to toil along the treeline, keeping the paths in sight. Worse still, he occasionally had to venture onto them to get his bearings. The fear of coming upon humans kept his stomach churning, as if he didn’t have a thousand other things to set his nerves alight with unease: Carmilla finding him, him finding the castle, him _not_ finding the castle, dying (despite his desire to do so), nightmares of Carmilla’s vile laughter, Carmilla’s claws drawing blood as she carded through his hair, Carmilla crooning _you look so cute like this, puppy,_ Carmilla’s knuckles splitting skin grinding bone Carmilla’s hand wrapped around his —

Hector tripped on a root, barely caught himself on a tree trunk, barely stopped his ankle from twisting. He teetered for a moment, before sinking to his knees, tears prickling his eyes. How often had he cried? Enough? Too often? Scarcely? He didn’t know, didn’t remember. How many days had it been since Braila? Since he fled Carmilla? It felt like yesterday, but a yesterday with five decades spanning between it and now. He wanted to cry. He wanted it to be over but he feared dying. What sort of coward was he, too scared to live and too scared to die? The lowest, surely. He didn’t used to fear death before. Why had that changed? Perhaps because of what proceeded death; Hector always figured he’d go quietly. What sort of punishment would Dracula give him, if his lord still lived? Would it be quick? 

Hector whimpered at the thought of receiving the same kinds of horror from his lord. No, he could not handle that— and he was a coward for it. He deserved whatever Dracula deemed suitable, and maybe that was more of the same. But the thought of Dracula doing the things Carmilla did… imagining Dracula’s claws ripping the last shreds of Hector’s clothes away—

A fractured wail tore through Hector’s chest. His throat whistled with airy sobs as he broke down fully, awareness of the world lost to his misery. Broken images of Dracula, both remembered and imagined, blurred over hauntings of Carmilla, until Hector couldn’t tell his benefactor from his torturer, and his shoulders heaved at the thought. 

Dracula could punish Hector horribly, and Hector hadn’t the backbone to accept it. Worse still, was that Hector would want it. He’d wanted Carmilla, hadn’t he? He hated her, feared her, yet his body responded under her cruel ministrations like it would his own hand. He couldn’t stay erect in her hand; not when fear coiled in his abdomen; not when her claws sliced red, hair-thin ribbons across the sensitive skin. And yet, _and yet,_ she could somehow drag an orgasm from him. One that left him nauseous, with a boneless feeling that chased his mind from his body because he couldn’t stand the helplessness, but an orgasm nonetheless. 

Hector hunched in on himself, as if he could ward away the phantom hand that pumped his cock, a dual-crooning in both Dracula’s cruelly-kind voice and Carmilla’s kindly-cruel: “You want this, don’t you? Your body can’t lie to me.”

Hector wasn’t aware of his noises anymore; perhaps he choked on a whisper, perhaps he howled into the night. He could scarcely feel his trembling limbs. 

Only when an unexpected hand landed on his shoulder did he come back to himself, screaming. Hector sprung away from the hand, all graceless desperation as he both tried to escape and tried to identify his company.

Two boorish men loomed over him, one crouched, one standing with a lantern hoisted in front of him. 

“Wait— you’re a boy!” the crouched one exclaimed. 

“Shrieks more like a banshee than a boy,” the lantern one groused. 

“What’sa boy doin’ with long hair like that?” the crouched one asked. “Why’re you cryin’ like a woman?”

Hector blanched, and scrambled backwards, bruised fingers seeking purchase on a root to propel him up and _away._

“Kind of a pretty thing, isn’t he?” the lantern man said, his horse-like teeth bared in a leer. 

In the half-seconds it took to register those words, screeches already erupted from the trees, arriving a little after the ghouls themselves did. The men didn’t even have a chance to scream as their flesh exploded into gushes of blood under the night horde fangs. While those two feasted, the largest and hairiest ghoul appeared before Hector. He threw himself upon the beast, scrabbling to get on its back, nearly choke-holding it as it took flight. 

The sound of sloppy gore and rending bone faded rapidly behind him as he ascended to the air. The sharp, cold bite of wind was the only snap of joy in the past god-knows-how-long. The elation of fleeing, untouchable, never dulled— not since he first took flight from Carmilla, not in the few times since.

This high into the blue velvet night, Hector noticed a murky black shadow spear the sky. Another sob broke, this one of relief. Without so much a thought, the ghoul shot towards Dracula’s castle. Steadily, the eight other ghouls ascended, a few of them squabbling in midair for pieces of Hector’s potential assailants. Hector found scraps of humor in their snarls and squeals, like whining siblings.

Hector guessed they were two or three hours from the castle by flight. He didn’t know if he felt anxiety or hope about his arrival, but for now, he didn’t care. He let the sky fill him, let the wind replace sinew and nerve. Whatever would come, would come. And Hector vowed, no matter what happened, he would die in that castle. 

The end was in sight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know shit from shit about medical stuff and attempting to research first aid and treating hunger victims was near useless, so forgive any medical inaccuracies.

Alucard sat in his study and did nothing. A book from the Belmont Hold was open on his desk, some treatise on tracking various kinds of monsters and dowsing spells. A valuable thing, but Alucard could not will his hand back to the pen, to transcribe the words onto blank paper. 

_Disgraceful,_ Alucard scoffed to himself. It was he who recommended they copy the Belmont library contents instead of transfer them to the castle. It was unsafe to leave them in the decimated, unsealed Hold, but it was equally dangerous housing the greatest studies of monster hunting in the stronghold of monsters, uninhabited as it was at the moment. Alucard promised that copying everything would keep him plenty occupied while Trevor and Sypha were gone, but here he was, unable to do much else but stew in melancholy.

He missed his loves. In the four months they spent with him after the death of Dracula, their relationship bloomed. They chased away his grief and held him when he couldn’t outrun it. They’d repaired most of the castle, save for that stretch of hallway where the battle first broke and Alucard’s childhood bedroom. That room would never be repaired. 

Eventually, Sypha could bear the ignorance of her family’s whereabouts no longer, and Trevor decided to accompany her to survey Wallachia’s hesitant rebirth. They both encouraged Alucard to join them, but Alucard insisted he was content to keep watch over the castle and the estate, that he had plenty of work still to do. 

That was a mistake. Alucard thought himself ready to be alone in the castle, but his grief hunted him down like dogs in the night, ambushing him in the forms of specters. His father stalked the halls, his mother hunched over tables of beakers and notes, he even caught sight of his younger self laughing through the doorways. He wondered if he was going mad, if Trevor and Sypha were his only tethers to reality. 

Fear of seeing ghosts, of his aching loneliness, tied Alucard to his chair. But empty sloth prevented him from doing much else. He sat a statue until the fire in the hearth behind him died out, until darkness crept its cold fingers into the room. 

A nudge against his shin awoke him from his vigil. Alucard looked down to see one bright blue glow in the dark. The undead, smash-faced dog sniffed at his boots, looking up at him imploringly. 

“Oh Argos, did you come to scare off my maudlin captor?” Alucard picked up the round dog, setting it on his lap. “What a ferocious little thing you are, my protecter from despair.”

Argos plopped his head on Alucard’s thigh and huffed a mighty, but happy, sigh. Alucard ran his fingers over the dog’s short fur, instantly feeling his mood lighten. He’d stopped questioning why the dog was here, instead enjoying the creature’s uncanny ability to relax him.

“Do you miss Trevor and Sypha too, I wonder?” 

Argos didn’t react, probably figuring Alucard wasn’t talking to him. If Alucard didn’t use that particular excitable voice, he may as well been talking to himself. 

“I hope they’re alright…” Alucard whispered. “It’s been two months now. Sypha did say it would take a month at best to track down her train, but… Wallachia must still be a dangerous place, even for two such as them. I worry…”

Argos stood up, turned around, and sat back down. He then wriggled constantly as his head kept slipping down Alucard’s thigh. 

“You know, you’re a bit of a _hefty_ little fellow,” Alucard chided. “And not as flexible as a cat. You really aren’t fit for lap-sitting unless you have the excess space of a couch. And your tiny little paws do not distribute your weight well. They’re surprisingly painful, especially when you’re as discourteous as to step on my crotch—”

Suddenly, the dog perked up, peering at the door. Alucard slanted an uninterested look towards the doorway, seeing nothing. He was used to Argos perking up at nothing, as animals were wont to do. He resumed petting Argos, hoping to settle the dog from his imaginings, but as suddenly as he perked up, Argos loosed an ear-piercing bark that stumbled into a howl as the dog leapt from Alucard’s lap.

“Good god, dog, what has you so worked up?” 

No sooner did Alucard speak the words than Argos was off in a dead sprint. 

Alucard jumped from his stupor as if he wasn’t just immobile for hours. Chasing after the dog was no difficult thing, but predicting where he was going was a lost cause. What could stir Argos into such a fuss? Surely Trevor and Sypha weren’t back. No, even if they were, Alucard would not allow himself that hope, because it was better to be pleasantly surprised than crushed with disappointment. Besides, it was dead at night, Alucard hoped the two would have the good sense to rest at the inn in the nearest town. 

And Argos was not running to the entrance hall. That was also a sign.

“Being undead clearly grants you infinite stamina!” Alucard groused as the dog marathoned across the length of the entire castle and up at least fifteen floors. When Argos hit one of the heavy doors to a bridge to one of the floating spires, Alucard slowed. 

“What on _earth_ possessed you?” Alucard scolded, making to pick the dog up, but Argos scrabbled desperately against the door, clawing and whining. If only to sate his curiosity, Alucard opened it. Argos jammed against it until enough space allowed for him to jet out. Alucard traced Argos’s trajectory down the bridge, until his eyes landed upon—- night horde.

Alucard’s hand flew to his sword, in vain. He didn’t have it with him. Clenching his teeth, he balled his fists and prepared for an unpleasantly close brawl. The ghouls’ unnatural blue eyes flared upon spotting Alucard, clustering over the bridge with bunched-up limbs and wind-spitting hisses. Alucard counted nine, one larger and hairier that crouched at the epicenter of the horde. Under it, Alucard noticed a figure, a _person_. Argos was excitedly licking and yipping at the person, but they didn’t seem to respond at all. They’d collapsed face down on the stone. 

And the night horde wasn’t seizing on this obvious opportunity. If anything they seemed to be _protecting_ the person. This person that Argos bolted across the castle for. 

_His master,_ Alucard realized. _Their master._

Cautiously, Alucard crept his way down the bridge, eyes darting between the uneasy ghouls. None of them made a move, but their hisses and growls rose in intensity with every step. When the largest one flared its wings in a threat display, Argos startled from his whining. He barked fiercely at the ghoul.

Alucard readied to flash forward, red aura gathering around his silhouette; he’d punch that ghoul’s head clean off its shoulders if it laid so much as a claw on Argos. The ghoul reared back and snarled, but did nothing further. It looked rather indignant at the dog’s continued protests. 

Argos spun back to Alucard, nearly crashing into his feet in his eagerness to return. Alucard bent over to rub the dog’s head, and before he could croon anything comforting, the dog raced back to the ghouls. Alucard blinked in bewilderment, and the ghouls seemed equally astounded. Reluctantly, they ceased their noise and drew back. Argos ran in anxious circles around the collapsed person, who hadn’t even stirred through that entire affair. Alucard stood stunned, piecing together that the creatures just _argued_ about Alucard, and that the dog _won._ Argos whimpered, entreating Alucard to come to its master. Alucard pursed his lips, but he approached his unexpected visitor.

Rags that might’ve once been ebony and silver were caked with dirt, ripped in odd places, intact enough to provide some warmth, but only enough to keep the person alive. Alucard guessed the person to be elderly, judging by the grey hair, protruding bones, and liver spots. Carefully, Alucard turned his visitor over in his arms. 

The man’s youthful face surprised him— he looked no older than Alucard himself, or Sypha. The dark spots, he realized, were not liver spots, but _bruises,_ motleys of colors and peppered over the man’s tan skin. Hunger sapped flesh from the man’s cheeks and between his ribs. 

Adrian’s doctor instincts possessed him. He pressed ear to chest, vampiric hearing allowing him to check the man’s pulse and breathing. Both sounded regular. Cradling him, Alucard ran a hand down the length of his back. Using a technique his father taught him, Alucard honed his blood-sensing to detect any broken arteries that would indicate spinal injury. There didn’t seem to be. Satisfied with the confirmation he could safely move the man, heedless of the ghouls, Alucard hauled him up. The early summer night wouldn’t kill his guest, but he still wanted the man indoors as soon as possible. Before Alucard could turn away, Argos tugged at his pantleg with stubby teeth, insistent. 

Alucard say no reason to start doubting the dog now. “Lead the way.”

The dog trotted into the tower suspended by the bridge. Alucard recalled it to be one of the two quarantine towers, where experiments on the dead took place. This one was the spire his mother was allowed in, where the bodies were deemed safe enough for human observation. Well, if the man in his hands was a necromancer, it tracked that his father would repurpose the tower.

As Alucard followed the dog in, he noticed a strange hammer, almost like a blacksmith’s, sitting on the stone table. One of the necromancer’s? He didn’t have time nor cause to explore, and a yip to his left directed Alucard to a doorway that lead to a spiral staircase. He followed Argos up, coming upon a bedroom. Alucard blinked a few times. He’d never been in this part of the castle save once or twice, but he didn’t recall a bedroom. 

No matter.

The man hadn’t stirred the entire time. Alucard took him in: a bloody patch on his right upper arm, a concerning ring of old bruises around his neck, ratty-soled shoes, and grime-blackened feet. 

Alucard’s sluggish mind flailed to organize itself. He’d checked for the most pressing internal damages, then… next step was strip the man and catalogue surface level damage, as well as check for any broken bones. Considering the filth of the man, Alucard thought it better to take him to the bathroom than soil the bed. Alucard almost turned around to leave, but if Dracula had fashioned a bedroom here, he likely attached a bathroom, as fastidious about hygiene as he was. A doorway nestled between two bookshelves confirmed Alucard’s suspicions. He carried the man in, stepping around a nervous Argos.

“You’re underfoot,” Alucard growled. “I’ll trip if you keep that up.”

He maneuvered around the dog, into the bathroom, and lowered his guest into the tub. Argos hopped onto his hind-legs, claws scraping against the porcelain wall, trying to peer in on his master.

“No!” Alucard snapped. “You’re an undead dog, I don’t know if you can transfer diseases! I’d rather not find out!” With his telekinesis, he floated the whining dog out of the bathroom and shut the door, while simultaneously removing the rags from the man. Alucard repositioned his patient so he could turn on the water without shocking the man with the water’s temperature. He adjusted the knobs and waited for the water to reach room temperature. 

The man still wasn’t awake, which was starting to worry Alucard. He took in the various contusions— most were yellow with age and hadn’t faded due to malnourishment, but they told a distressing story. Discolorations covered the man’s face, though nothing looked malformed, so no broken bones. Round blotches were spotted all over his chests, indicating he was frequently and savagely beaten. More concerning were the bruises on his hips and thighs— Alucard shuttered to think how he got those. A once over didn’t reveal any immediate disfiguration or obvious swelling, so again, no seriously broken bones. A healing spell could probably take care of most of the wounds, but… Alucard wasn’t confident in that particular kind of magic yet. Not enough to attempt healing while his patient was unconscious, anyway. Perhaps when the man was responsive, Alucard could attempt it. Sypha spent many nights of the four months teaching Alucard her restorative Speaker magic, and Alucard grew proficient, but since they’d left, he’d had no one to practice on. He feared his budding skills had atrophied. 

He shook his head. No matter, his basic skills as a doctor would do well for now. He tested the water temperature by washing his hands, and finding it sufficiently lukewarm, began the long process of washing his patient. 

Alucard managed to clean all the man’s cuts, bandage everything, and set him up in the bed, and still he didn’t wake. At most, he made a few soft sounds while Alucard washed him, but gave little else to indicate he would wake soon. Alucard clung to those noises as any kind of reassurance he could get.

Once Alucard put the pillows under the man’s feet and fussed with the blankets, he knew there was little else to do but wait for the patient to wake up and answer questions.

After being in such a frenzy, the idea of idleness abhorred Alucard. He didn’t want to leave his guest alone, but he would need food and clean water. Best to get that out of the way now, Alucard supposed. 

For his patient’s sake, and to work off excess energy, he teleported most of the way, leaving a red outline of himself trailing through the castle. Once at the kitchen, he chewed his top lip, considering. Feeding the man too much too quickly would only result in him vomiting it back up. Alucard needed to control his portions, and keep the fare light. No solids, he recalled, not initially. Broths would serve well. He also recalled his father saying something once that sugars were necessary to starving victims, something about sugar content in their blood. Fruit juices served that purpose well. Pears, perhaps? They were naturally very sweet. 

Alucard paced over to the enchanted oven, and laid a hand upon it. 

“Oh Belphe, I implore you to shed the months of desuetude for my humble plea.” Alucard entreated the demon. His father had stuffed Belphe up the oven so that his mother had all her favorite foods at her disposal in an instant, and the demon had been a sort of family cook because of it. Since the death of its master, Belphe had been slightly temperamental, and while Alucard and Sypha were content to cook for themselves, this was not an occasion where Alucard could dawdle. He’d beg if he had to. “I require light fare for a starving patient, and something sweet to drink. Could I coax a bowl of chicken broth and sweetened pear juice from you?”

Instead of several moments of contemplative silence, Alucard immediately felt a rumble and heard the customary hum of Belphe reaching through time and space to assemble a meal instantly. Honestly, Alucard was stunned his father managed to get a demon with interdimensional capabilities to play cook, but Belphe hadn’t fled the castle as soon as Dracula perished, so apparently the demon didn’t mind. 

Alucard opened the oven to see his requested food, piping hot (not ideal for the pear juice, but the only catch with Belphe was that it had to make hot food— it was stuffed in an oven after all), but also materialized behind his requests was a small, puffy pastry filled with airy lemon creme. It was not a dessert that could exist with current cooking knowledge or equipment; Dracula once quipped that Belphe reached through time itself for a treat to appease a little Adrian. Indeed, Belphe often provided it when its young master was upset beyond reason and neither parent was immediately accessible. Belphe’s gifts were a sweet bandaid to bad days. The fact that Belphe was providing one now spoke volumes of its lingering compassion. 

Alucard rested a hand on the oven again. “Thank you, dear friend. Your kindness is not lost on me. This will be my reward when I’ve stabilized my patient. Keep it fresh for me.” He grabbed what he came for and began his trek back. He unfortunately couldn’t fade-step his way back with liquids in his hands, so he had nothing to do but walk and think.

What did he know? That his patient was the master of undead animals and ghouls alike. That Argos’s presence in the castle suggested his patient was a previous occupant. That his control over the night horde probably earned him a spot on Dracula’s council, an impressive feat considering he was a human. Alucard didn’t want to consider Dracula sinking so low as to ensnare a human against their will, but he didn’t know what his father did to assemble his war court, and couldn’t rule out the possibility. But just as likely, the human came of his own accord, which did not reflect so poorly on Dracula but concerned Alucard more immediately. Why did the necromancer come back to the castle? Certainly not to do battle with Alucard, with the state he was in. 

What else did he know? That the man was obviously raped and abused. His malnourishment and battered feet suggested fleeing, probably from his abusers. The ring around his neck, though, that concerned Alucard. Faded as the bruises were, they didn’t immediately scream suffocation like Alucard expected. Alucard wasn’t sure what could cause it.

The man plainly needed help, unknown position on Dracula’s council not withstanding. Consequences be damned, Alucard would help, and face the fallout when it came. It what his mother would’ve done. It’s what he _wanted_ to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea for Belphe came from a friend's Draculisa fic (I'll link it when they post it, it's so good you guys). They're content to just making it a magic oven so they didn't have to research medieval kitchens, but my fantasy writer-ass couldn't leave it at just magic so I had to come up with an explanation and oops, now I might have a side character I really love.  
> Belphe's name comes from Belphegor, which is supposed to be the demon of gluttony but apparently he seduces people into making ingenious inventions that make them rich but lazy??? I don't know how that relates to gluttony, and it certainly doesn't sound like an interdimensional cook demon, so. Cut the -gor off and pretended it's its own thing.  
> Blease, message me on tumblr: [OkamiRockatansky](https://okamirockatansky.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big warning for the nightmare in this chapter, it's where 90% of the Bad Tags come from. 
> 
> it also absolutely sucked to format. that's not relevant to anything i just wanted you to know that.

Hector hunched over, arms wrapped around each other, fingers bruising impressions into his biceps. Perhaps if he could compress himself enough, he could become small. The impenetrable sheets of Carmilla’s tent surrounded him, caged him, claustrophobia woven into light-repelling fabric. He continued folding in on himself— despite the waistband of his pants cutting him in half, despite the back of his shirt protesting against the stab of his shoulder blades— until he felt his vertebrae pop, felt them separate like beads on a string pulled too taut.

_Good pet,_ Carmilla cooed, somewhere behind Hector. He knew this was a dream, because his bolt of fear felt entirely external, a passing sensation he knew in theory but not practice. His dream self didn’t feel much of anything. At least, not until something— a knife? her nails?— incised down the length of his spine. Hector shivered.

_You’re adorable like this, truly a darling._ Carmilla ran her nails under his skin, separating it from muscle, shucking it back like coaxing an orange from its peel. When it piled in wrinkles at the margins of his back, Carmilla sliced another line through his muscles, and pulled it into terraces of glistening red-pink. Hector kept quivering, some distant part of his mind knowing he should be in inordinate pain.

_I’m making a cunt of your back. Isn’t that creative? Aren’t you happy, to be sculpted by me?_

Carmilla pulled on the collar, and Hector nodded before she could crush his throat. 

Hector jolted as Carmilla inserted two fingers, finding a vertebrae and plucking it out. He heard the hard taps as it fell to the floor. She did it again, and again, and again— Hector counted thirty-three taps on the ground. He could no longer lift his head. 

_You didn’t need those,_ Carmilla stated sweetly. 

And then she shoved her shoe in his back. 

Hector gasped, hands flying to the floor, fingers tightening around the rugs. Even with his dream-dulled senses, the alien pain of her heel pushing through wet folds of sinew shot tears to his eyes. 

_Tch. Whinging child. I’ll quiet you._

Hector felt her foot against his windpipe briefly before she _plunged_ through it. Air did not leave him, did not sputter out, no— he simply had oxygen one second and none the next. His chest spasmed, thrown off its natural rise and fall, the sharp point of Carmilla’s shoe threatening to puncture the other side of his chest. Hector stilled. He couldn’t take a deep breath to relax, it only made him seize more. So he stopped. The stillness felt unnatural, made Hector want wriggle out of his own body. He wanted his soul to bleed out of his mouth, his nose, his ears, his eyes, slither away as some primordial sludge, and disappear into unknowing oblivion. 

Carmilla pulsed her foot against the membrane of his chest-skin. _I’m your heart now._ She beat again, louder and harder than his own heart. _I can kill you if I want._ Hector winced as his skin stretched again, distressingly close to breaking. _You need me. Say that you need me._

I need you, he said. His voice didn’t sound like it came from his own body. It bounced off the curtains, unmuffled by the floor that cradled Hector’s face.

_Say you like this. Admit to the pleasure coursing through you._

There was no pleasure to speak of. But if he said so, he would see Carmilla’s whole foot sticking out of him. He didn’t want that. So he lied, I like this.

_Say you love it._

I love it.

_Say you hate me._

Hector blinked, stalled. That was a trick question. It had to be. But what was the price of answering the opposite? Uncertain, Hector obeyed. I hate you.

Her foot reared back and surged forward, and Hector braced himself for death. She stopped at the last second. Hector’s chest was intact, tenuously.

_Wrong,_ she sneered.

Hector swallowed down tears. His instincts were right then. God, why was he so stupid? 

I- I love you, he choked out.

Her foot rammed back, forward, again. Hector grunted against the pain.

_Wrong again._ Slowly, hellishly, Carmilla forced her heel through his skin, sinking out, out, out, and his scream rose in dynamic with the agony. Hector wailed and howled, but Carmilla’s voice rang clear:

_The correct answer is, you fear me._

Hector screamed awake, thrashing against the tent sheets that must’ve collapsed on him. He held his bleeding chest in his hands, as if he could stop his heart from falling out of the ragged red hole. 

A voice— male voice, Hector didn’t recognize it, one of Carmilla’s guards?— sounded from somewhere off Hector’s right. Hector writhed away, trying to escape, but iron hands wrapped around his arm.

Hector shrieked, louder and shriller, flailing against the guard’s hold. A hissing noise struck his ears. Panic-stricken, Hector flung a hand to his neck, as if that would protect it. The hissing continued, steady and sustained, unlike most vampiric hisses Hector’d heard in his time. He quieted his shrieking, though he was still panting, trembling, and wide-eyed like dying deer. 

The hiss trickled over Hector’s eardrums like a clearwater stream, and Hector realized it was _shushing._

“Shhhh, shhh, it’s alright,” the guard soothed. “I won’t hurt you. You’re safe here.”

Safe? He was safe here? Where was here?

Hector’s eyes focused, and he realized he wasn’t in Carmilla’s tent. He was in a bed. _His_ bed, actually, the one above his forge. His eyes scanned his bedroom, and saw it hadn’t changed; fully stocked bookshelves lining the walls; a fluffy rug before a hearth, pillows piled around for animals and Hector alike; a round table meant probably for late night tea and philosophical discussions, but Hector tended to sling any old thing on it, mindful of the candle resting at the center. Additional things sat on the table: bottles of unknown content, bandages, and cloth. 

“There we are. Slow, even breaths,” the voice above him whispered. The hand on Hector’s arm stroked calming lines over his skin. He willed himself to look at the other person.

His eyes first landed on the hand, black-gloved. He followed up the black-sleeved arm to the face— despite himself, his breath caught, and not from panic.

Hector’s first thought was that his company was remarkably beautiful. Stunning in a way many vampires weren’t. The man seemed a hollowed-out marble statue filled with liquid sunlight, overflowing into gold rivers over his shoulders. Hector’s second thought, after taking in the hawkbeak-thin nose, wide mouth, aristocratic brows and cheekbones, was that _this_ was the son of Dracula. Hector had seen the portrait of Lisa enough times to put two and two together. 

“ _Alucard,”_ Hector breathed. “You’re— you’re Alucard.”

Alucard smiled slightly, a gentle thing, gentle as a songbird. Hector knew that was Lisa’s smile. “You know of me?”

“Looking at you is enough.” If Hector meant that as a joke, it certainly didn’t come out as such, all ragged breath and gravelly throat. Hector wondered when he actually last spoke. He wondered if all the screaming and the collar-crushing permanently damaged him.

Alucard hummed something in the rhythm of a chuckle. “Indeed, I strongly resemble both my parents. Interesting how that works.”

Hector didn’t look like his parents. But then, he hadn’t seen his parents since he was a child. Hector didn’t have the energy to mention it, to keep the conversation going, to distract himself from his ever-present panic. He sat up, shifting away from Alucard slightly. One hand still clutched his chest. He looked down, expecting blood to coat his palms, but there was nothing. Just a phantom ache that felt too real.

“Does your chest pain you?” Alucard asked. 

Hector stared down at his hands, refusing to look up. It was then that he noticed he looked… cleaner. And bandaged. So Alucard treated him while he was unconscious. Hector’s throat fought dryness at the thought of other things Alucard might’ve done. 

Hector wet his mouth, as if he could soften the scrape of words over his tongue after so long in disuse. “No— well. Not… really.”

“Can you describe the pain for me?”

Hector rubbed his lips together. Were he in the state of mind, he would question whether or not to tell Alucard. Now, he questioned how to speak, how to interact at all. “I… the dream. It’s, it’s not a real pain.” 

“I’d say it’s very real pain,” Alucard said, his tone haughty yet kind. “But it’s not a treatable pain is what you’re saying.”

Was that what Hector was saying? He didn’t know. He hadn’t known anything but _run_ and _horror_ for days and nights, and now he had to know things like _talking_ and _meaning_ and _processing._ He reached into a great fog-white void, grasping for intelligence that used to be there, only to fumble at air. 

The wet pitch-shifting of water filling a cup caught Hector’s attention. He snapped around to stare at Alucard, filling a glass on the candlelit nightstand. Finding creeks in the forests did not abate Hector’s desperation for water.

“Here, are your hands steady enough to hold this?” Alucard offered the glass. 

Hector reined in the animal that wanted to snatch it and gulp it in one, taking it gingerly with both hands because he’d be damned if he wasted a single drop. He noticed it an odd, misty pale yellow. This wasn’t water, it was poison, or piss, or—

“It’s pear juice,” Alucard supplied. “You need sugar in your blood, and that was the first thing I thought of.”

Hector didn’t believe it, not for a second, but raised the glass to smell anyway. It certainly smelled like pears and nothing else, but that didn’t assuage Hector. He cut a doubtful look at Alucard.

Alucard only seemed puzzled. “Aren’t you thirsty? I haven’t poisoned it or anything.”

Hector held the glass out to Alucard with a glare. “Then you drink it.”

Without hesitation, Alucard took it back. Seeming intent on proving a point, he took a large gulp of it, and grabbed the pitcher to replenish what he drank.

“There, see? Not poisoned.” He handed the glass back to Hector. “I suppose I can’t make you do anything, but I really would prefer if you drank that.”

Hector was still wary, but once the cup touched his lips, he couldn’t help but to suck it down. It was cloyingly sweet, lukewarm, and the best thing Hector ever had in his life.

Alucard _hmphed_ in soft amusement. “Safe to say you’re hungry too, then. Are you up to eating?”

Hector almost choked on the desperate _yes_ that threatened to splutter out while he was still drinking. He polished off the glass and nodded. His starvation was a constant enemy, as evilly companionable as the ache in his feet, and Hector had his whole life as practice for ignoring it. But once food was offered, the beast in his stomach awakened, twisting through his guts like an angry snake.

Alucard grabbed a bowl from the nightstand, took a small swig of its contents to again assure it wasn’t poisoned. “I’m afraid you can’t eat solids yet, you’ll merely vomit. After so long without food, most of it will be a shock to your system. But this chicken broth should have enough in it to sustain you. Drink as much as you can.”

Again, Hector took the bowl carefully, as it were an offering _from_ a god instead of _to_ one. Hector tried fight the well of tears; he was tired of crying and too tired to cry. But great globs of water blurred his vision. He angled his head away, so Alucard didn’t see him crying over _food._

“ _Thank you,”_ he strained. He didn’t know Alucard’s motives for doing any of this, and he doubted they were good, but even the facsimile of kindness was enough to overwhelm him.

“Oh dear,” Alucard breathed. “You’ve been through a great deal, haven’t you?”

Hector fisted the sheets, gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, as if that could stop the tears. They slipped out anyway, landing on the blanket in fat drops. He snuffled as his nose grew runny. 

“Perhaps now is not a good time to eat,” Alucard remarked. 

“N-no! I can— I’m sorry.” Hector tried to wipe it away, tried to keep the bowl balanced in his lap. He didn’t want to make a mess on the sheets. Carmilla broke his fingers once, for bleeding on her dress. 

“It’s quite alright,” Alucard said. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, but I can gather it was something horrifying on a level I’ll never understand. You can cry, scream, whatever you need. I want you to feel safe here.”

Hector didn’t believe it, none of it, but he started crying harder anyway. Hector felt the bowl on his lap shift away, and wild panic seized him. He grabbed it, jostling the broth from the ceramic and spilling some on the bed. Then his brain caught up to what he just did.

Hector stared in terror at Alucard, waiting for his face to morph into fury or a cruel smile that tutted about Hector’s insolence. 

“I- I’m sorry,” he choked out, shrinking away. “I didn’t mean to, it was instinct…!” 

Instead of rebuking him, Alucard’s face sagged with pity. A genuine, sorrowful pity, borne of the deepest sympathy. “I was merely going to set the food aside. It is I who should apologize, I didn’t mean to upset you further.”

Alucard’s eyes reminded Hector of Dracula’s. Dracula never looked upon him with such kindness, but something in the hollowed-out red implied traces of comfort; the comfort that now shined from his son’s. 

The thought of Dracula tipped him over. If Alucard was here, in the castle, that could only mean one thing. Hector bent over himself, too wracked with grief to notice that Alucard took the bowl and set it aside. Hector folded over and it reminded him of his dream. He thought of his dream and remembered Carmilla. He remembered the guards tying him to a post as they made camp for the day, how they proffered food to his mouth and snatched it away like cruel children, how they left him in the back of a wagon with his hands bound when his feet ached too much. The wagon itself seemed intent on beating him, on striking new bruises into his weak flesh and worsening old ones. 

Hector’s sobs hurt his throat. The collar hurt his throat. The lack of water hurt his throat. Everything hurt. Hurt was all he knew for so long. He wanted it to stop. That’s all he ever wanted, his whole life: stop hurting. There might’ve even been a time where he wanted _everyone_ to stop hurting, not just himself. 

God, how could he be so stupid, so spineless, to believe Dracula, Carmilla, any of it? A man so mad with grief would never agree to a cull. A woman so plainly wicked would never keep her word. What did he expect either of them to do, anyway, when humans were livestock? No one treated animals like Hector did, with care and respect and intelligence. Why did he assume Dracula or Carmilla would? Vampires came from humans after all. How could he forget that? Vampires were just _worse_ humans, really, the sickest parts amplified with undue power and ambition and bloodlust. Vampires were more barbaric than humans could ever be, with such long lives to enact so much cruelty.

He should’ve known that.

He should never have joined Dracula.

He should’ve killed himself one of the many times he considered it as a child, honestly. 

A hand touched his arm.

Hector jerked away, fearing a guard stripping him of his clothes to ‘have a round at the Mistress’s toy,’ fearing Carmilla stroking his overlong hair, fearing Carmilla’s beating. He collapsed on his side, burying his face in the mattress, convulsively weeping. 

Time disappeared, as it usually did for Hector. Everything disappeared. Hector emptied his emotions onto the fabric. His mind ricocheted around his skull, hitting upon every pain in random order. His grief over Dracula. Carmilla. Berating himself for kowtowing to any vampire that whispered sweet nothings to him. Despising himself for betraying Dracula. Wondering how much Dracula hated him before Dracula died. Carmilla. Thinking how nice it would’ve been if he’d burned himself with his parents. Carmilla. Hating his body and all its treacheries. Carmilla. Loathing himself. Carmilla. 

Someone was talking to him.

“You must allow me some contact,” the voice was saying— Alucard, yes, he was with Alucard. “I— I confess, I don’t know how to comfort you otherwise.”

Hector cracked a bleary eye open, and saw that pity-laden face again, this time shrouded in soft shadows with the fireplace crackling behind him. Alucard was crouching by the left side of the bed now. His hand, glove removed, palm up, lay on the bed. Making sure Hector was watching, Alucard slid his hand towards Hector’s, wedging it under Hector’s right hand, and closing his fingers. Hector waited for the grip to crush, for the dhampir to grind Hector’s bones to meal, but it never happened. Somehow that sent Hector right back into his spiral. 

Hector rode the waves of anguish until his face was drenched, his hiccups wrenching the last reserves of his energy. Hector clutched Alucard’s hand with punishing force, holding it like a second heartbeat. At some point, Alucard started rubbing circles into Hector’s hand with his thumb, and with each rotation, Hector felt himself calming to a state of numbness. 

Finally, there was nothing. Just the crackle of the fire fighting the customary coldness of the castle. Alucard was still staring at him with such sedate sadness, but Hector couldn’t care. Hector couldn’t think, in the most merciful way possible. 

Alucard pulled his hand away and stood up. Hector couldn’t feel the absence. 

The dhampir picked a clothe from the table and return, offering it. “Here, blow your nose with this. Might as well get everything out, yes?”

Hector somehow found the energy to sit up, and blow all the snot out into the fabric. Once he was forcing nothing but air out, he found another cloth offered to him.

“I ran it under some warm water. You should wash your face with it, it might make you feel better.”

Hector traded cloths, and wiped down his snotty, tear-tracked, bruise-mottled face. Alucard was right, the warmth did help him, if only the smallest bit. He handed the cloth back to Alucard, and that was all he could manage. His last sliver of energy went to making himself some semblance of comfortable as he laid down, and passed out. 

He slept like the dead, and dreamt of nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not exactly an ending, I know. I wanted to post this anyway, but I have a bad habit of not finishing anything I post, and I wanted this to be at enough of a stopping point that even if I never came back to it, I wouldn't feel _too_ bad about it. That said, I am discontent that this is more angst than comfort because it is Not what I set out to do. Doesn't feel great to keep writing awful things about one of the two (2!) characters of color in this show, but I have a hard time suppressing my longform novelist instincts that require conflict.  
> If you liked this, and/or you wanna kick my ass into writing more so I actually get to the fluff, I entreat you, message me on tumblr ([OkamiRockatansky](https://okamirockatansky.tumblr.com/))


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